Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s nightmare year, 1951, told in news clippings
Even today, more than 70 years later, you will hear about L. Ron Hubbard’s near-miraculous transformation in 1950 from a modestly well known pulp fiction writer into a sensationally known expert on the human mind with the publication of his bestseller, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.
Across the country, Americans experimented with re-experiencing their time in the womb and their births with Hubbard’s odd notions of “pre-natal engrams” through hands-on counseling. It was the launch of what would eventually become the “Scientology” movement and later a “Church of Scientology” that still exists today, 38 years after Hubbard’s death in 1986.
What you tend to hear less about, and certainly nothing from Scientology which is totally silent on the matter, was that Hubbard’s sudden and impressive success in 1950 was followed by probably the worst year of his life. In 1951, his second wife Sara Northrup went public with accusations about him that are kind of amazing he survived at all.
We have referred to this numerous times, and we have always meant to dive into it a little more, and the reason we are doing it now is that our stalwart friend, the helper who dives into newspaper archives for us, sent us a bundle of things when we told him that we had a special interest in the year 1951.
We’ve put together a collection of items that appeared in American newspapers that year, and when you see them assembled this way, well, you do have to wonder how Hubbard came out of it as unscathed as he did. Give it a look and see how it hits you…
Feb 26, 1951 (LA Examiner)
Efforts of Dianetics Founder L. Ron Hubbard to reconcile with his estranged wife, Sara, yesterday kept police busy after she was reported missing under mysterious circumstances.
The strange episode was punctuated with a report that Mrs. Hubbard was whisked away in an automobile — and later, by her telephoned assurances from Yuma, Ariz., that she left Los Angeles of her own accord.
The incident was touched off Saturday when Mrs. Hubbard left the couple’s 9-month-old daughter, Alexis, at Hubbard’s Dianetic Research Foundation, South Hoover and Adams boulevard, hub of the nation-wide “mental healing” system.
Miles F. Hollister Jr., a former official of the group, told police Mrs. Hubbard — separated from her husband for several months — returned late Saturday from a hurried airplane trip to San Francisco.
Hollister said she decided to spend the night in her husband’s apartment, 1251 South Westmoreland avenue, upon finding it unoccupied. Hollister said he and a private detective were requested by Mrs. Hubbard to stay in the neighborhood.
At 1 a.m. two cars parked near the apartment and a short time later drove off — with Mrs. Hubbard beside her husband. Hollister and the detective gave chase.
They lost the Hubbard auto. The other was traced to Frank Bernard Dessler, 42, a foundation official of 128 South Camden drive, Beverly Hills.
Dessler told Beverly Hills officers that Hubbard, 39, had sought to reconcile with his wife and she agreed to accompany him to Tampa, Fla.
As police questioned Dessler, Hubbard telephoned from Yuma to say Sara had decided to return to Los Angeles by airplane. Detective Sgt. Ray Borders heard her assurances she had made the trip voluntarily.
“But my husband won’t tell me where the baby is,” she complained to the officer.
She was informed the child had been left by Hubbard and Dessler at the Westwood Nurses Registry Agency, 10838 La Grange avenue, Westwood, where they had paid for a week’s care in advance.
Vince McGonigel, owner of the registry, told police he would have to see an attorney before releasing the child.
McGonigel had reported the placement to Beverly Hills police when the men aroused his suspicions by identifying themselves only as “Mr. Olson” and “Mr. Frank” — which Dessler admitted to police were fictitious names.
Last December 18 Hubbard was fined $50 by Municipal Judge Kenneth Holaday for leaving the baby unattended in his automobile while he delivered a lecture. A 10-day jail term was suspended.
Apr 10, 1951 (LA Daily News)
Sensational charges that he had kidnaped his young wife by force and “imprisoned” their 13-month-old daughter were hurled today at L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Dianetics movement.
The accusations were contained in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Hubbard’s wife, Mrs. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25, to regain possession of the child.
Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie issued the writ and sheriff’s deputies were directed to serve it on Frank B. Dessler, identified as one of Hubbard’s disciples.
The petition charged Hubbard, Dessler, and Richard B. DeMille, 29, described as the son of film director Cecil B. DeMille, entered into a conspiracy last Feb. 24 to spirit the child away and abduct its mother to Arizona.
It set forth the child, Alexis Valorie, was placed in a West Los Angeles nursing home under an assumed name.
The wife alleged she was kidnaped from bed in her apartment at 1251 Westmoreland avenue and taken as a prisoner to Yuma, Ariz., by DeMille and Hubbard.
The same night, she charged, the child was taken from a nursery in Hubbard’s Dianetic Research foundation at 2600 South Hoover street and placed in the West Los Angeles Nursing Home by Dessler.
The petition described Hubbard as doing a business of $1,000,000 a year.
On the drive to Yuma, Mrs. Hubbard claimed, her husband told her that if she “really loved him she would kill herself and thus save him further bother with her.”
“Hubbard falsely accused” his wife, the petition recited, “of having injected a hypnotic solution of codium pentathol into his eyes with a hypodermic needle during his sleep for the purpose of subjecting him to her supposed hypnotic powers.”
Upon reaching the California-Arizona border, the wife charged, Hubbard forced her to sign a statement declaring that she had left her apartment with him voluntarily, had crossed the border of her own will and had sustained no injuries.
She signed the paper after he threatened to kill her and conceal the baby, he said.
They then drove into Yuma and Hubbard, accompanied by DeMille, took a plane for the east and she drove the car back to Los Angeles, the petition continued.
The wife’s attorney, Caryl Warner, said Hubbard is now believed to be in Wichita, Kan., or Elizabeth, N.J.
Judge Lillie directed that the child be produced in court April 16.
Apr 16, 1951 (LA Daily News)
Dianetics founder L. Ron Hubbard’s infant daughter, whom Hubbard last week was accused of snatching and hiding somewhere in the country, is instead with her father in New Jersey, court testimony indicated today.
The testimony came from Vincent J. McGonigle, operator of the West Los Angeles nursery where Hubbard’s wife had said the infant, Alexis Valerie, was secreted under the name, “Anne Marie Olson.”
The wife, Mrs. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25, charged her child was placed in the nursery the same night Hubbard allegedly forced her from her apartment and drove her to Arizona under threats he would kill her.
She said the placement was made by one of Hubbard’s disciples, Frank B. Dessler, who was ordered to produce the baby in the court of Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie today in response to Mrs. Hubbard’s writ of habeas corpus.
However, Dessler told the judge he had not seen the baby since it was put in the nursery. McGonigle then took up the story with testimony he and his wife took the infant to Hubbard in Elizabeth, N.J., last March 5.
Mrs. Hubbard’s attorney Caryl Warner, then sought and won a continuance of the matter from Judge Lillie so he might question Dessler and McGonigle further.
Apr 23, 1951 (Los Angeles Mirror)
Torture, kidnaping and bigamy charges today were made by his wife against L. Ron Hubbard, [40], fabulous leader of Los Angeles’ “Dianetics” cult.
Mrs. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25, daughter of a wealthy Pasadena family, charged in suing Hubbard for divorce that “he is hopelessly insane and crazy.”
She expressed fear for the life of their daughter, aged 13 1/2 months, victim of an alleged kidnaping by Hubbard and Richard B. DeMille, son of Producer Cecil B. DeMille.
She also charged Hubbard, head of the $1,000,000 Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation, 2300 S. Hoover St., “repeatedly subjected her to systematic torture.”
It included “loss of sleep, beatings, strangulations and scientific torture experiments,” the young wife declared in action filed in Superior Court by Atty. Caryl Warner.
Following one ordeal of torture, the suit charged, Mrs. Hubbard was hospitalized for five days and kept under guard by her husband, who, she said, had been diagnosed as insane by competent psychiatrists.
Mrs. Hubbard also accused her husband of marrying her bigamously Aug. 10, 1946, and asked $500,0000 damages if the court proves her bigamy charges true.
Hubbard, head of a new psychology whose followers practice self-analysis, “dominated her physically, mentally and emotionally,” her suit alleges. It quoted Hubbard as telling her once:
“I do not want to be an American husband…I can buy my friends whenever I want them.”
He “further said that he did not want to be married, yet divorce was impossible for a divorce would hurt his reputation,” the suit charges, “and that she should kill herself if she really loved him.”
Mrs. Hubbard declared her 13 1/2-month-old daughter, Alexis Valery, was “abducted from her crib” last Feb. 23 by Hubbard and Frank B. Dressler, a “Dianetics” associate, and hidden from her by them and DeMille.
Her suit detailed a nightmare incident at 1 a.m. the following day in which Mrs. Hubbard allegedly was “dragged out of bed attired in a nightgown” by Hubbard, DeMille and Dressler.
“By use of threats, strangulation, torture and false promises to return her child,” the suit said, “they carried and kidnaped her to Yuma, Ariz.”
Hubbard is still in Yuma and the child — “if alive” — is in hiding under an assumed name in West Los Angeles, Mrs. Hubbard charged.
“Even now she would not bare the truth to the world,” the suit declared, “except for the compelling advice of her attorney…that she tell the truth, for the truth…will bring back her baby, if alive.”
In torturing her, Mrs. Hubbard said, her husband once kept her awake in their Hollywood apartment for 96 hours, then gave her an overdose of sedatives which resulted in her hospitalization for five days.
On another occasion, she declared, Hubbard caused her “serious personal injury” by starting up the car “intentionally” as she alighted from it.
“By reason of the foregoing crazy misconduct of Hubbard,” the suit said, “she is in hourly fear for both the lives of herself and her infant daughter.”
Seeking divorce, annulment or separate maintenance, the suit also asked the court to compel Hubbard to submit to psychiatric examination. Competent psychiatrists, the suit declared, already have recommended that he be confined “for treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia.”
The suit charged Hubbard “frequently” strangled his wife and that shortly after last Christmas “he violently strangled her and sadistically ruptured the Eustacian tube in her left ear, resulting in an impairment of hearing.”
Hubbard kidnaped the child and abducted his wife to Yuma, she said, when he learned that she had informed his superiors in the “Dianetics” cult of his mental condition.
Mrs. Hubbard’s 12-page complaint identified Hubbard’s previous wife as Margaret Grubb Hubbard, of Bremerton, Wash., whom he divorced Dec. 24, 1947, in Port Orchard, Wash., over a year after his present marriage began.
Apr 24, 1951 (Wichita Evening Eagle)
Dianetics offers a “positive hope” of eliminating a large portion of the factors of insanity and crime in our population, according to L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Hubbard Dianetics foundation.
Hubbard arrived in Wichita last week end to make his home here. Main offices of the foundation opened at 211 West Douglas last week after being moved from Elizabeth, N.J.
Apr 25, 1951 (LA Examiner)
“Dianetics” Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s treatment of his wife in depriving her of their baby was “disgraceful and reprehensible,” Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie declared yesterday.
However, the Domestic Relations Court is powerless to act to recover 13-month-old Alexis inasmuch as Hubbard and the baby are not in California, Judge Lillie ruled in denying assistance to Mrs. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25.
In ruling, Judge Lillie agreed with Mrs. Hubbard’s attorney, Caryl Warner, that “some further action” should be taken against Hubbard and two associates accused of conspiring to steal the baby and kidnap Mrs. Hubbard last February.
The associates are Richard B. DeMille and Frank B. Dessler, local manager of Hubbard’s “mental healing” organization.
Mrs. Hubbard’s request that the court order Dessler to produce the baby was denied by Judge Lillie on the ground that she has no control over Hubbard or the baby.
In a separate suit for divorce or annulment, Mrs. Hubbard accused her husband of “being hopelessly insane.”
May 2, 1951 (Citizen News)
Ron Hubbard, dianetics founder, is in Cuba, his wife says.
She said he had received a letter from him saying he has been in a military hospital there. The letter states he is being transferred to the United States as a “classified scientist immune from interference of all kinds.”
Mrs. Sara Hubbard, 26, filed the letter in court yesterday in support of her charge that he kidnaped their baby Feb. 24. She is suing for divorce or annulment and seeks custody of the child, Alexis Valorie, 13 months old. The letter said “Alexis is getting excellent care.”
There was no explanation of the latter’s reference to Hubbard as a “classified scientist.” In military parlance, “classified” means “secret.” Hubbard’s system of dianetics deals with self-analysis.
May 14, 1951 (LA Daily News)
Dianetics founder L. Ron Hubbard, missing target of a sensational divorce suit, allegedly has been found “hiding” in Wichita, Kan., by Arthur W. Wermuth, the legendary one-man army of Bataan.
Discovery of the 40-year-old mental-movement mogul was claimed in a petition by his estranged wife, Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25, asking that her missing mate’s California assets be put in receivership.
Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie granted the petition, which was prepared by the wife’s attorney, Caryl Warner, thus tying up the local headquarters of the Dianetics foundation at 2600 South Hoover street and Hubbard’s bank account. Not affected, however, .was the foundation’s operations at its present site, 715 Parkview street.
Judge Lillie made it clear she signed the petition on the strength of the wife’s contentions the foundation was solely owned and controlled by Hubbard and was in fact his “alter ego.”
Last April 24 Mrs. Hubbard filed her divorce suit, charging her husband had fled the city with the couple’s daughter, Alexis, 14 months, after first snatching her, the wife, from her apartment and taking her on a frantic ride to Arizona under threats he would kill her.
The wife said medical advisers have concluded Hubbard is “hopelessly insane.”
Mrs. Hubbard said two weeks later she received a letter from the dianetics king saying he had their child with him in Cuba.
In the receivership petition the wife said Wermuth, who now is a marshal in the Wichita area, found that Hubbard “was hiding” in the Kansas city, “but that he probably would leave town upon being detected.”
The wife also included in her petition a letter she said was written to her last May 2 by Hubbard’s previous wife, Margaret Grubb Hubbard, of Bremerton, Wash.
The letter said:
“If I can help in any way, I’d like to. You must get Alexis in your custody. Ron is not normal. I had hopes that you could straighten him out.
“Your charges probably sound fantastic to the average person. But I’ve been through it — the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits which you charge, 12 years of it…”
Hubbard or his attorney must show cause before Judge Lillie next week why the receivership, now temporary, should not be made permanent.
Jun 13, 1951 (Wichita Eagle)
L. Ron Hubbard, head of the Hubbard Dianetics foundation was granted an emergency divorce decree from Sara Northrup Hubbard, Tuesday afternoon. William C. Kandt, judge pro-tem, made the award in district court.
Hubbard, represented by Franklin Hiebert, had filed a cross-petition asking for divorce to a separate maintenance petition which had been previously filed for Mrs. Hubbard by Harry Gillig, Jr. Both petitions had charged extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.
The emergency decree of divorce was allowed by Judge Kandt to permit Hubbard to leave immediately for Bremerton, Wash., where his father is seriously ill.
A property settlement and support for one minor child had been agreed upon by the divorced couple. Property awarded to Mrs. Hubbard amounted to $2,000 and the sum of $200 monthly is to be paid by Hubbard for child support.
Nov 21, 1951 (Wichita Eagle)
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, identified as the founder of Dianetics, Inc., 211 West Douglas, was named defendant in a child support action filed here Tuesday by his former wife, Louise G. Hubbard, Bremerton, Wash.
The action was filed under a new reciprocal enforcement act under which authorities in one state collect child or wife support from a husband in another. Kansas’ 1951 legislature enacted the statute.
Mrs. Hubbard obtained a Bremerton court decision Oct. 15, under which she was awarded $1,397.25 for support of the couple’s daughter and $297 for support of their son, who for some time has been with his paternal grandparents, according to the petition.
The children are Lafayette Ronald, Jr., born May 7, 1934, and Katherine May, born May 15, 1936, the petition states. The woman said she was awarded custody of the children when she obtained a divorce in 1947 on grounds of desertion and non-support, and that Hubbard was ordered to pay $25 monthly support for each child. He has not paid anything toward their support, the wife said.
Jan 18, 1952 (Wichita Eagle)
Feb 22, 1952 (Wichita Eagle)
Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, Inc., 211 West Douglas, filed a petition in bankruptcy through its attorney Jean O. Moore, in federal court here late Thursday afternoon, according to Fred Partridge, clerk of the federal court. The foundation has been in receivership in Sedgwick county district court for some time, Partridge said.
As Russell Miller explains in his epic history of Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, and Lawrence Wright further details in Going Clear, Sara finally got Alexis back in June, 1951, when she agreed to Hubbard’s divorce terms and was willing to make a public statement retracting her previous claims.
Had she exaggerated any of her claims in her frantic effort to get back her missing child? We tend to doubt it. How about you?
As that last clipping suggests, the nightmare year of 1951 had produced a serious problem for Dianetics, which was steadily going out of business. But Ron always had his angels, and in Wichita it was an oil man named Don Purcell, who purchased the assets of the bankrupt foundation, allowing Hubbard to regroup in Phoenix with something he was now calling “Scientology.”
Sara died of cancer in 1997. Her daughter, Alexis, told us years ago that she appreciated that we’d reached out to her from the Village Voice, but that she had no interest in speaking publicly. We’ve honored that request since then.
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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
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This is great, Tony. It pulls together threads that were rumored when I was in, but of course they were dissed as untrue. I heard (more than once) that he said Alexis wasn't his daughter. That said, there was always a sense of mystery about it. This collection of clippings wraps the whole mess up, and reminds me of how easily I gave away my critical thinking skills in order to stay "in". So much for "knowing how to know"!
I would like to believe that if the internet had been around in the 1950s scientology would never have gotten off the ground. However, Sara Northrup was ahead of her time. Even in the 1970s and into the 1980s we just kept our mouths shut because the man was the boss. I have no proof but I would not be shocked if he abused Mary Sue as well. He abandoned her and let her take the fall for Snow White. He was angry not sad when Quentin died (that is real misemotion, not the Hubbard version of misemotion). He was a bigamist and a narcissist. Unfortunately he managed to convince way too many he was sane. It’s amazing the amount of effort that has been put into undoing the damage caused by one man.